Friday, 22 April 2011

why the government inspector needs to be inspected

One of the reasons why corruption is a hallmark of the NRM administration is that even those supposed to fight it have skeletons in their cupboards.
And perhaps you might not blame them. The fish rots from the head first.
So, the office of the Inspector General of Government seems to be rotting away, begining at the head.
Just recently, the IGG Raphael Baku earned Shs8million per month. This was revised to Shs17million. But Mr Baku was not amused. He demanded another revision to Shs24million. This demand was provoked by the Finance ministry letter to the IGG indicating that another money would be released to cater for the wage bill.
While Baku had earlier given himself 100 percent salary rise while other officials got 30 percent, the big man has decided not to increase any other employee's salary. Reason? The Permanent Secretary, Mr Waiswa Bageya refused to grant his salary rise from Shs17million to Shs24million.
Mr Waiswa declined to increase Baku's pay saying that he would find it difficult to account for that increment. Besides, Waiswa said the salary increase should be for the officials who had missed out earlier.
Realising that he wasnt going to get his way, Mr Baku ruled that no salary increment should be made to any other official. Mr Waiswa is now worried for his job as his boss has reportedly opened a war against him over salary increment.
To make this directive look reasonable, Mr Baku said that instead of increasing salaries for other officials, he would instead recruit more staff oestensibly to ease the workload.
What is bizzare is that even the available staff are most times idle. Sources say senior staff keep leaving IGG over poor pay yet Mr Baku now prefers new recruits who lack experience. When they gain experience, they also get disgruntled over poor pay.
According to my investigations, work at the IGG office is paralised because the staff morale is low.
To make matters worse, Mr Baku has also ordered the scrapping of medical, food ration and housing allowances for staff. These allownces used to be consolidated into the payslip.
In addition to the lack of allowances, Mr Baku is accused of playing divide and rule methods of administration.
He has reportedly deliberately made the directorate of operations ineffective. Instead, he has preffered to empower the directorate of investigations whose mandate is supervision of regional offices.
Sources say Mr Baku infact wants to abolish the directorate of Operations.
Because the directorate of investigations is now favoured, it is overwhelmed with work.
Tribalism is now being cited in Mr Baku's move. The directorate of investigations is headed by Muzamiru Abon, his tribesmate while Mr James Penywii, an Acholi, heads Operations.
The confusion in the IGG office has been accelarated by a World Bank deal. The bank gave the IGG a contract to monitor NUSAFII projects in northern Uganda. Ten vehicles were bought to facilitate the monitoring but instead of giving them to Operations which asked for them, Mr Baku allocated them to investigations.
It is said that Mr Baku is trying to get any penny from his office to the extent that he has now become a globe trotter. Parliament approved a IGG budget for training but sources say Mr Baku has tried all his best to ensure that he alone benefits. He is so rare in office that the plane has become his toy. Sources say the IGG personally travels abroad even on a trip that required a junior official. He has now been nicknamed a commuter.